Friday, October 23, 2015

Industry Told to Keep Costs on Royal Navy's Successor Class SSBN Under Control

Britain’s nuclear submarine industry has been warned by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon not to repeat the delays and cost overruns of the Astute hunter-killer program when it builds the Royal Navy’s new Trident missile submarines.

“Let’s be in no doubt that our new conventional [Astute nuclear submarine] timetable may have slipped a little but our new ballistic missile submarines cannot be late. There cannot be any threat to the build times, overrunning costs or any other excuses,” Fallon said during a speech Wednesday at an industry briefing to lawmakers and others on the Successor nuclear deterrent program.

The Conservative government is committed to building four of the new 16,000-ton Successor nuclear missile boats and is expected to seek final parliamentary approval for the program in the next few months.